Progress of Air Pollution Control in China and Its Challenges and Opportunities in the Ecological Civilization Era

Tropospheric ozone (O3) and aerosols are major air pollutants in the atmosphere. They have also made significant contributions to radiative forcing of climate since preindustrial times. With its rapid economic development, concentrations of air pollutants are relatively high in China; hence, quantifying the role of air pollutants in China in regional climate change is especially important. This review summarizes existing knowledge with regard to impacts of air pollutants on climate change in China and defines critical gaps needed to reduce the associated uncertainties. Measured monthly, seasonal, and annual mean surface-layer concentrations of O3 and aerosols over China are compiled in this work, with the aim to show the magnitude of concentrations of O3 and aerosols over China and to provide datasets for evaluation of model results in future studies. Ground-based and satellite measurements of O3 column burden and aerosol optical properties, as well as model estimates of radiative forcing by tropospheric O3 and aerosols are summarized. We also review regional and global modeling studies that have investigated climate change driven by tropospheric O3 and/or aerosols in China; the predicted sign and magnitude of the responses in temperature and precipitation to O3/aerosol forcings are presented. Based on this review, key priorities for future research on the climatic effects of air pollutants in China are highlighted.

Climatic effects of air pollutants over china: A review

Fast growth of air pollution was experienced in China during the past decades, resulting in extremely large aerosol radiative forcing with up to ten times high compared to the global averages. The responses of surface air temperature to aerosol radiative effects range from − 0.1 to 1.1 K across China, with strong spatial and seasonal variations. Aerosol interaction with clouds can also affect radiation and precipitation. Under high pollution conditions, the frequency of heavy rain increases while the frequency of light rain decreases. Aerosols share common emission sources with CO2, implying that reducing common sources can be another manifestation of the interaction between aerosol and climate. Air pollution controls will contribute to the climate change mitigation by reducing CO2 emissions stemming from controls of pollution sources. On the other hand, potential co-benefits in reducing air pollution also come from the mitigation of climate change by reducing CO2 emission that potentially affects the aerosol concentrations. It is suggested that the PM2.5 (fine particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 μm or less) concentration tends to decrease under future climate control scenarios. Such co-benefits are mostly associated with the reduction of common sources of CO2 and aerosol (noted as emission-driven interaction), rather than the variation of meteorological conditions associated with future climate change (noted as meteorology-driven interaction). Compared to emission-driven interaction, the impact by meteorology-driven interaction on aerosols is relatively smaller and varies geographically as the PM2.5 concentration is likely to increase in northern China while decrease in eastern China. The current review suggested that the co-benefits of reducing CO2 and aerosol pollutant in China, and their response in the context of future climate change, are worthy of further research.

Understanding of Aerosol–Climate Interactions in China: Aerosol Impacts on Solar Radiation, Temperature, Cloud, and Precipitation and Its Changes Under Future Climate and Emission Scenarios

Using the reconstructed continuous and homogenized surface air temperature (SAT) series for 16 cities across eastern China (where the greatest industrial developments in China have taken place) back to the nineteenth century, the authors examine linear trends of SAT. The regional-mean SAT over eastern China shows a warming trend of 1.52°C (100 yr)−1 during 1909–2010. It mainly occurred in the past 4 decades and this agrees well with the variability in another SAT series developed from a much denser station network (over 400 sites) across this part of China since 1951. This study collects population data for 245 sites (from these 400+ locations) and split these into five equally sized groups based on population size. Comparison of these five groups across different durations from 30 to 60 yr in length indicates that differences in population only account for between 9% and 24% of the warming since 1951. To show that a larger urbanization impact is very unlikely, the study additionally determines ho...

Trend of Surface Air Temperature in Eastern China and Associated Large-Scale Climate Variability over the Last 100 Years

A dataset of air temperature and precipitation time series (1959–2008) from 61 stations across Shanxi, China is used to analyze the climate change. The monotonic trends and step (abrupt) trends for annual and seasonal series data of mean air temperature and total precipitation are tested by using Mann–Kendall test and Mann–Whitney test, respectively. The results show that annual mean air temperature has increased by 1.20°C during the past 50 years. Winter, spring, and autumn have experienced a significant increase in air temperature. The step trend for annual mean air temperature is different from, but closely related with, those for seasonal mean air temperature. Spatially, there is an enhanced warming trend from south to north in Shanxi, and the most remarkable warming occurs in northern Shanxi. Annual precipitation has decreased by 99.20 mm during the past half century. The decrease is mainly caused by precipitation decline in rainy season (June–September), though precipitation in post-rainy season (October–November) also tended to decrease. An abrupt decrease in precipitation has occurred since late 1970s. Decrease in precipitation is highest in central Shanxi and in the area along the west fringe between Sanchuan River and Fenhe River in western Shanxi.

Change trends of air temperature and precipitation over Shanxi Province, China

This paper describes scalings of the H-mode confinement database of neutral beam injection (NBI)-lower hybrid wave (LHW) and electron cyclotron resonant heating-LHW plasmas in the EAST tokamak. Fundamental information of the EAST H-mode database and the details of calculation of the thermal energy confinement time in EAST are presented. The result of the scaling model τE,EASTS,H,NBI - LHW of the thermal energy confinement time in NBI-LHW plasmas with root-mean-square-error RMSE=5.5% , compared with the multi-machine scaling model τth,98y2 derived from the multi-machine database (mainly NBI heating) with RMSE=12.9% , is obtained. The scaling τE,EAST,H,NBI - LHW presents a similar dependency on plasma current and power loss and a lower dependency on plasma density and elongation, but stronger dependency on toroidal field than in τth,98y2 . The scaling τE,EAST,H,ECRH - LHW demonstrates a similar dependency on plasma current and power loss and lower dependency on plasma density, but a negative dependency with large error bars on elongation compared with τE,EAST,H,NBI - LHW in NBI-LHW plasmas. The comparison of EAST models with the more recent multi-tokamak scaling ITPA20-IL shows a similar engineering dependency on plasma current, power loss and plasma density, but opposite dependency on toroidal field.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-4326/acb15f/pdf

The scalings of the thermal energy confinement time in EAST H-mode plasmas

Understanding the role of aerosols in global and regional climate change requires the long-term measurements of aerosol optical properties. We use an indirect method to infer aerosol optical depths (AODs) based on atmospheric visibility and water vapor pressure measured at 504 key climate stations in eastern China (east of 100° E) over 1951–2002. Inferred AODs are compared with the MODIS satellite measurements for year of 2002. Results show that AODs averaged over 1951–2000 exhibit large values in Sichuan Basin and Changjiang River Delta, and there are two belts of high AODs, one from Beijing to South China by the middle reaches of Changjiang River and the other from Beijing to Changjiang Delta. Inferred AODs in eastern China show the lowest value in 1960s, increase dramatically in 1980s, and reach maximum in 1990s. The ratios of the regional and decadal mean AOD in 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to that in 1960s are 1.085, 1.0, 1.066, 1.195, and 1.22, respectively. Statistical analysis shows that variations in AODs correlate with the changes in precipitation and air temperature in eastern China over the past 50 years. Correlation coefficients between annual mean AOD and precipitation are 0.39, 0.37, and 0.57 in the upper (Sichuan Basin), middle, and lower reaches of the Changjiang River, respectively. In the Sichuan Basin, the increase in annual mean AOD correlates with the reduction in air temperature with a correlation coefficient of −0.33 at 95% confidence level.

Variation of atmospheric aerosol optical depth and its relationship with climate change in China east of 100°E over the last 50 years

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The scalings of the thermal energy confinement time in EAST H-mode plasmas

Variation of atmospheric aerosol optical depth and its relationship with climate change in China east of 100°E over the last 50 years